Tag: fatherhood

When Tera was pregnant with Nolan, we decided we needed to pick jobs. We would both change diapers and we’d rotate who’s turn it was to wake up in the middle of the night, but some jobs (for obvious reasons) were not possible for me to do. So I picked some others that would be all me.

One was dishes.

I’ve never minded washing dishes, and Tera hates it. Easy choice. And a lot of dishes, as it turns out. I did my research on best practices, how often to sterilize the bottles, and weeks before Nolan was born, I started boiling bottles. From that moment on, I washed dishes every night. Sometimes it seemed like I was doing it all night. It was the job I took on, and I did it well.

Another job that became mine was the emergency runner. We need diapers late at night? I’m on it. Formula won’t last through tomorrow? Got it. A nose sucker at 11pm because Nolan had a cold and wasn’t sleeping? I’ll be back soon. I knew the baby aisles of every grocery store, Target and Walgreens in the metro area. It was another job that was mine, and I did it well. And often.

As Simon’s due date drew nearer, I geared up. I refreshed my memory on bottle sanitization. I made a pact with myself to always have enough gas in the car to get to and from Safeway without having to stop.

I wasn’t “as ready as I can be” like you hear all people say as they are expecting a child. I was just ready.

A few weeks ago, we realized we didn’t need all of the “grass” we had on the counter. We were able to pare down the drying racks and we now have one small rack. Plenty for Nolan’s cups. I put the rest of it in the crawl space.

As I trudged under the house, I sobbed. The grass I was putting away should be full right now. Of freshly washed bottles, and nipples, and pump parts. It should be in high demand, not gathering dust.

A few days ago, we ran out of milk. Nolan needs his milk the moment he wakes up, and we didn’t have a drop. So I made an emergency run. And when I got to Safeway, I was halfway to the building from the parking lot, and I turned around. I went back to my car, and I cried.

I wasn’t making a midnight trip to make sure Simon had diapers. And I would never make that trip.

My jobs, the ones I chose and was so ready for were taken from me. I’m not the all night dishwasher, and I’m not the emergency runner.

I was beyond ready to take on those tasks again and to do absolutely anything and everything I needed to do to care for my son. And now I’m still ready. I’m just not sure what for.

I’ve learned a lot about grief since Simon died. Buying an urn for the son you never got to bring home is a nearly impossible task that you have no choice but to do days after losing him. Grief messes with your body’s ability to function physically. When you have a toddler at home, you have no choice but to power on and function anyway. Grief is utterly exhausting.

And grief is isolating.

It keeps you locked up in your home, your bubble. It needs the calm, the peace, the space. And it is scary to invite someone in.

It takes a lot of work, even now, 5 months later, to be around people. At work, I have no choice. I am around people all day, and it is exhausting. To keep up the charade that I am feeling ok. To talk, and listen, and retain what needs to be retained. To be creative, and for me the most difficult thing is to be organized. My brain is a jumble most of the time. Thoughts, fears, should haves and could haves. There’s a lot that demands attention.

I say all of that to say this. Odds are good I’m not calling you. I don’t have the energy and I don’t often have the inclination to sit and chat. Or at least I don’t have that when I am the one picking up the phone. I need your help in that. WE need your help. Your calls, your out of the blue “check-in” texts. Your contact. It’s not that I don’t want or need it, I just can’t typically initiate it.

And another thing.

Tera, and I live in this new world. This world of grief that I wish no one had to live in. But we do. Every damn day. A call or a text looks to us like an acknowledgement that you, too are ready to climb down the hole and join us.

We are (almost) always ready to talk. About how we’re doing, how Nolan is doing, about Simon. But we aren’t going to drag you kicking and screaming into the hole with us.

Imagine if you will. You’re at a family BBQ have a great time, drinking some beers and playing yard games. Your phone rings. It’s me, so naturally you answer, wondering if I need anything or whatever. I start to unload about my terrible day and the awful (or not awful) thing that happened that made me think of Simon and break down.

That’s a pretty shitty thing for me to do right? To mess up your perfectly lovely day to dump all over you? I think it is. Truly.

But if you’re ready to ask me those questions and you really care about the answers, I’d love for you to call, text, etc. I’d love to talk about Simon and how we are all doing.

Words have always been very important to me. They have meaning. They have power. That fact is the only thing I’ve ever argued with my brother-in-law about. I don’t remember the context, or the words spoken, just that care needs to be taken, because words matter.

(Maybe that’s why I do what I do for a living.)

When Simon died, our world changed. We changed. I changed. I began to see the world very differently. I began to see how different words mattered to me as I am now.

“You lost Simon, but you have Nolan!” No. We lost Simon, AND we have Nolan. One fact doesn’t take away the other. We have a son who we love and cherish. And we have a son who’s eyes we’ll never see and who never took a breath.

“But you can have another one!” True, we hope we can have another child. That doesn’t take away the baby we lost. It doesn’t replace him, and it doesn’t replace the pain of losing him. How about “AND you can have another one.” Sounds a lot better right? It acknowledges the fact that we lost Simon, and (see what I did there?) it doesn’t imply that another baby, if we are lucky enough to have one, will fill the hole in our hearts or make us forget him.

“It’s hard right now, but it will get better.” Even that sentence frustrates me. It might get better, but don’t minimize the now by making it seem like there’s an endpoint to the grief. “It’s hard right now, but” implies something that no one can know, and certainly something no one can promise.

“But” is the end of that portion of the sentence and it always seems to be preceded by the awful truth that we lost our son. Simon colors every part of our lives, and he always will. We can’t, and wouldn’t end a portion of our lives that included him to move on. Especially since the portion of our lives that he is a part of is EVERY portion of our lives.

Bath time has always been one of my favorite times with Nolan. He has loved the bath almost his entire life. (For a while, I think we had the water a bit too cold. He didn’t love that.)

Now, bath time is a time to get clean, and most importantly, a time for Nolan to play, splash, and start his early training as a hydrological engineer.

We have lots of toys in the tub. Probably too many. But one of his favorite ones to play with is the alphabet. Letters that stick to the side of the tub or the wall, and he’s starting to recognize them. He sees the N, “that’s my letter!” He sees the D, “that’s daddy’s letter”, and so on. He is so proud when he gets it right. Almost as proud as I am.

He always gets the S. “That’s Simon’s letter!” He proudly proclaimed tonight. Then came the sweetest phrase I think I’ve ever heard. “When Simon comes home, I give him his letter.” He’s thinking about his little brother. He wants to give to his little brother. He wants to have his little brother.

Naturally, I started bawling. Nolan noticed. “I give you a hug daddy?” He always asks this in the kindest tone of voice imaginable. We hug, then we talk.

I know what I have to tell him. I know I have to reenforce that Simon is never coming home because Simon died. Simon’s body stopped working, he died and he’ll never be coming home.

And then.

Then he says the sentence that kills me. “Why Isaac come home?” We have friends who were due to have their baby just before us. Their Isaac came home. Our Simon did not. And Nolan doesn’t understand.

How am I supposed to help him understand something that his mom and I don’t understand? How do I tell a ridiculously smart 2 and a half year old that his little brother will always be his little brother, but that he’s never coming home.

Seriously, if you have any answers for me, I’d love to hear them. How do I teach the two most concrete yet abstract words in the english language, always and never, to a little boy who was running around wearing a superhero mask and cape, and nothing else, just before bath time tonight?

We still connect at bath time. We get to play, we get to talk, we get to learn. And with questions like the ones he asked tonight, we get to remember Nolan’s little brother, my son. Simon was there with us at bath time tonight, but not in the way I always dreamed and hoped he would be.

Today has been really hard, and I’m not sure why. I mean, I know why, but I’m not sure what makes today different. But it is.

Maybe it’s because today is a harder than I expected, and maybe it’s because I deserve (or need) to have days that kick my ass like today did, but the fact that today has sucked makes me want to rant a bit about something that has been bothering me for a while.

“Dads grieve too.”

I hear it all the time now. I see it on Instagram posts and Facebook pages are dedicated to the idea. There are books (or at least chapters of books) with that exact title. And on the surface it seems like a good thing to share and make sure people realize.

But here’s where my rant starts, and I apologize if it doesn’t make any damn sense, but quite frankly, this post is for me, not you.

Of course dads grieve too. And for anyone to suggest otherwise is either completely out of touch or completely insensitive. Likely both. The reason I say this is to say that there shouldn’t be a need to tell people that I have a heart and that it is shattered. I shouldn’t need to explain to people who know about Simon why I’m not so smiley or why I’m having a shitty day. Dads grieve too because -NEWSFLASH- dads are parents. Dads are people. Dads like me lost part of themselves.

I firmly believe that no one with an ounce of compassion would ever wonder why a mom who lost her child is sad, crying, grieving, broken. I would never ever question a mother’s pain, and it would be utterly asinine to do so. Hell, no one questions why a mother whale is grieving the loss of her calf. So why don’t dads get that same automatic consideration?

I didn’t carry Simon inside me for nine months. True. But I did carry him in my heart for nine months. From the instant of our embryo transfer, a part of my heart was living outside my body. I did everything everything within my power to make sure he would be happy, healthy and here. Turns out none of that mattered. For nine months, a part of me was growing, thriving, living, I just couldn’t see or feel that part of me aside from the periodic ultrasounds and the nightly kicks (once they were strong enough for me to feel.)

And now, that part of me that was living apart from me is gone.

I never got to know what it was to hold our Simon as he squirmed and wiggled around. I never got the chance to know him, to teach him, or to laugh with him. I lost a part of me.

The day after we said goodbye to Simon was a fog. We cried almost constantly, we knew we needed to be there for each other and for Nolan so we got out of bed and did what we could. We got out of the house and went for a walk to the end of the block and back. It was all we could manage, and we were proud of ourselves for making it that far.

There have been a lot of days after since then.

The day after we picked up Simon’s ashes. Something we never thought we would have to do, and something no one should have to do for their child. The day after, we were still in the fog and being pummeled by the waves.

The day after our first support group. We were told about the so-called grief-hangover that we should expect. It was real, and it hit hard. It was another day in the fog and while I was glad we went and glad we were beginning to learn we were not alone, I was still unable to see any light.

The day after we decided to honor our son with a bench at a beautiful Denver park. I had a task. A job to accomplish. I had to find out how to do it, what it takes, and I had to get it done. It was a job I wish I didn’t need to take on, and a job that I am so glad I did throw myself into. There was an end result. A perfect bench at a perfect park.

The day after we met with the specialist and confirmed what we already knew. We were scared about what we might hear, what we might learn. The day after, I felt a little stronger and more confident in what happened to our Simon, and at the same time, more confused and unsure of our next steps.

The day after Nolan’s surgery. Relief. A healthy, safe, happy boy. He woke up. He was fine. Our weeks (or months) of worry about the outcome were all for naught. We had our boy at home.

Now today.

The day after our memorial for Simon.

The day I was dreading.

It was a day of utter heartache. A day punctuated by a speech I never thought I’d get through, a song I never thought I’d want to hear again (but I am so grateful I did), people we hadn’t seen in weeks, months, years, even decades coming together to cry with us, laugh with us, and to remember Simon.

It was a day that my grandpa, Simon’s great-grandpa, comforted me and gave me a lifetime of advice without uttering a word.

It was a day we’ll never forget.

I was dreading yesterday right up until yesterday happened. Then, and now (the day after) I am so glad we did it the way we did, and so glad I gave the speech I never thought I could. Everything we did was for Simon and it showed us how much support we have, and he has. And that support will be there for our family of four, always and always.

So I’ve been taking part in a writing workshop the last handful of days. We are given prompts that force us to delve into our grief in new and unique ways.

One prompt recently was about kindness. How are you kind to yourself. Seems like a great prompt, but I couldn’t get past the opening paragraphs of the work that was chosen to get our creative juices flowing.

I may not have followed the rules to a tee, but I couldn’t get past the first words I read, and here’s what I came up with.

“Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things.”

I’m calling bullshit.

Maybe it’s too fresh. Maybe I’m still so angry. Maybe I’m still to confused about a world that would let my baby die before he had a chance to cry even once.

The idea that I can’t…or couldn’t…know kindness until my little boy was taken from me reeks of the “everything happens for a reason” that makes me physically ill and red-faced angry at anyone who would say that to a grieving dad. No. Not everything happens for a reason. And no. I didn’t need to lose Simon to know kindness.

Had he been born, had I held him when he cried, had my heart melted the first time he looked into my eyes, my ability to see kindness (and my ability to display it) would have been instantly heightened. When my first son was born, I understood instantly what an amazing place the world was. I felt the kindness of people around my family’s community as we all came together knowing that “it takes a village to raise a child” and this was our village. That is a kindness that I had never learned, and it didn’t take a crushing loss to see it.

I am a kind person now. I am kind so that both my living son and my dead son will be proud of me. And I will always know that I would have changed when Simon came into the world had he lived, too. I would have become even more empathetic than I was before. I would have seen the good in people, in the world.

So did it take my son not having a chance at life for me to know kindness? That’s a really fucking arrogant idea. He dies, I see kindness.

Screw that. Kindness has always been there, but HE never gets a chance to experience it.

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Why I Write

We were a week away from welcoming our little Simon when we heard the words that made the world stop spinning. He didn’t have a heartbeat.

Writing has always been my creative outlet, and I need that now more than ever.

But while I am now, and always will be Simon’s dad, I’m also Nolan’s dad. He’s a smart, talkative, active little two year old, and as we learn to navigate our “new normal”, we do so with him by our side and my job as his dad will also play a prominent role on always-and-always.

Every photo on my blog was taken by my talented wife, Tera. Photography is her outlet, and I hope you’ll follow her on Instagram @castles_on_the_hill